Elementary reading fluency and comprehension: Do laptops make a difference?

DISSERTATION

Abstract

This study examined whether a one-to-one laptop program had an effect on the reading-fluency and comprehension scores of fourth- and fifth-grade students over a half-year period. Pre- and post-test scores on the AIMSweb R-CBM fluency and Maze-CBM comprehension tests were collected for 1,048 students attending six diverse, high-poverty elementary schools. Six hundred ninety-seven students were assigned to the non-laptop (control) group and 351 students to the laptop (treatment) group. Data were analyzed for each measure to compare control and treatment groups using paired t-tests and two-sample t-tests.

The findings show that reading-fluency and comprehension scores for the control and experimental groups were statistically significant from pre- to post-test. The results also show that laptops did not have a statistically significant effect on the reading-fluency and comprehension test scores for the experimental group in comparison to the control group, as measured by the R-CBM and Maze-CBM, over a half-year period. The study's findings, limitations, and implications for future study, practice, and policy are discussed.

Citation

Bryan, A. Elementary reading fluency and comprehension: Do laptops make a difference?. Ph.D. thesis, University of Virginia. Retrieved May 25, 2019 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/125936/.